The first time you setup cobbler, it’s always a good idea to run cobbler check. A sample run on my newly installed system shows …

# cobbler check#0: The 'server' field in /etc/cobbler/settings must be set to something other
than localhost, or kickstarting features will not work. This should be a
resolvable hostname or IP for the boot server as reachable by all machines that
will use it.
#1: For PXE to be functional, the 'next_server' field in /etc/cobbler/settings
must be set to something other than 127.0.0.1, and should match the IP of the
boot server on the PXE network.
#2: Must enable selinux boolean to enable Apache and web services components,
run: setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect true
#3: service cobblerd is not running
#4: service xinetd is not running
#5: change 'disable' to 'no' in /etc/xinetd.d/tftp
#6: service httpd is not running
#7: since iptables may be running, ensure 69, 80, 25150, and 25151 are
unblocked
#8: One or more kickstart templates references default password 'cobbler' and
should be changed for security reasons: /etc/cobbler/sample.ks,
/etc/cobbler/legacy.ks, /etc/cobbler/sample_end.ks

Lesson for the reader

Take a few moments to walk through each of the recommendations. I’m leaving out the actions performed to resolve the above issues, they are outside the scope of this post. If you have questions, toss them in the blog and I’ll be happy to help.

After making the recommended corrections, running cobbler check again shows:

# cobbler check
The following potential problems were detected:
#0: since iptables may be running, ensure 69, 80, 25150, and 25151 are
unblocked
#1: One or more kickstart templates references default password 'cobbler' and
should be changed for security reasons: /etc/cobbler/sample.ks,
/etc/cobbler/legacy.ks, /etc/cobbler/sample_end.ks

Assuming you have opened up the recommended ports in your firewall, you should be safe to proceed. Let’s start getting things ready for the big event.

What To Wear?

Okay a stretch, but the whole point of this is so we can easily try on different distributions. I’m going to use several versions of Fedora, but cobbler doesn’t limit you to Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Fedora-based derivatives (see SupportForOtherDistros). I’m also fortunate in that all the distros I want are available via NFS on a nearby system. If that wasn’t the case, you may need to download the DVD’s from a local mirror.

Download a DVD or CD image from a nearby mirror (i’ll be using the DVD).

There are many different ways to import a distribution into cobbler. I chose not to mirror the entire DVD locally but instead provide a URL where the distribution is hosted. For information on other ways to use cobbler import see UsingCobblerImport.

Making Room For Our Guests

I prefer using LVM logical volumes for my virtual guests. This allows me to re-install my host operating system while leaving the guests intact (useful when upgrading to a new Fedora release). We’ll use the free-space we left available when we installed the system.

Let’s see how much free-space we have in our Volume group. Running vgs shows …

You may encounter an error message indicating that a network connection could not be made, just click Retry for now (see bug#471382 for details). This will be addressed also in the next version of koan.

Congrats! You now have 5 virtual guests configured and available for provisioning through cobbler. You’ll notice that your first install was an automated text-mode installation.

My next post will spend more time on configuring the installs using kickstart and integrating it with SNAKE. Stay tuned …